Blue Screen of Death

The Blue Screen of Death (also known as BSoD, Blue Screen, or bluescreen), known officially as a Stop Error [1] or a bug check, is the error
screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems upon encountering a critical error, of a non-recoverable nature, that causes
the system to crash. The term is named after the color of the screen generated by the error. In UNIX-based operating systems, a similar term is kernel
panic.

Stop errors are hardware or driver related, causing the computer to stop responding in order to prevent damage to the hardware or data. In the later
versions of Windows (Windows NT and later) the screen presents information for diagnostic purposes that was collected as the
operating system performed a bug check.

Contents

[hide]
 1 History
 2 Details

o 2.1 Windows 1.0 and 2.0

o 2.2 Windows 3.x, 95, 98, and ME

o 2.3 Windows NT

o 2.4 Windows 8

 3 Meanings

 4 References

 5 Further reading

[edit] History

The term Blue Screen of Death originated during development of the IBM OS/2 operating system at Lattice Inc, the makers of early Windows and
OS/2 compilers.[citation needed] Developers encountered the error screen when bugs in the operating system's software (typically null pointers) slipped
through the net during beta testing. In feedback to IBM, a company known informally as 'Big Blue', the developers humorously described the Stop
screen as the 'Blue Screen of Death' in consequence of its color, of the association of that color with IBM, and of the finality of the error (which
caused the computer to hang without any possibility of recovery, requiring a manual restart). [citation needed]

[edit] Details

If configured to do so, the computer will perform a "core dump" and save all data in memory in raw form to a disk file (known as a "dump file") for
later retrieval, to assist in the analysis by an expert technician of the causes of the error.

Blue screens are typically caused by software errors in device drivers: in NT-based Windows systems by poorly-written device drivers, and in the
Windows 9x family of operating systems by incompatible DLL driver files or bugs in the software kernel of the operating system.[2] They can also be
caused by physical hardware faults, such as faulty RAM memory or power supplies, overheating of components, or hardware which is run beyond its
specification limits ("overclocking").

These errors have been present in all Windows-based operating systems since Windows 3.1. OS/2 suffered from the Black Screen of Death (also
BSOD), and early builds of Windows Vista displayed a Red Screen of Death due to a boot loader error.

[edit] Windows 1.0 and 2.0

Windows 1.0

The earliest blue screen of death was encountered upon booting into Windows 1.0, and subsequently Windows 2.0, and consisted of seemingly
random data ("mess") composed of code page 437 symbols, presented against a blue background.[citation needed] When Windows 1.0 encountered any MS-
DOS related critical system errors, it displayed a black screen of death instead.[citation needed]

[edit] Windows 3.x, 95, 98, and ME

Blue screen of death as seen in Windows 9x

The first blue screen that resembled an error screen was in the Windows 3.x series. Similar error screens appeared in Windows 95, Windows 98 and
Windows ME. These presented an error message against an all-blue background, in 80-column 25-line text mode. The error screen was displayed
when there was a critical startup error (such as accessing a hardware driver file that no longer existed), or in the case of some other serious fault such
as an unhandled error occurring inside a VxD hardware driver file. The BSOD also occurred during system use if a device driver had to present a
modal dialog to the user, such as where a removable disk was removed from the drive whilst a file was being read or written.

During a demonstration of a beta version of Windows 98 by Microsoft's Bill Gates, at COMDEX on April 20, 1998, a BSOD incident occurred in
public. The computer crashed with a blue screen when his assistant (Chris Capossela, currently Microsoft's Chief Marketing Officer) connected a
scanner to demonstrate Windows 98's support for Plug and Play devices. This brought applause from the crowd, and Gates replied after a pause:
"That must be... er... that must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet!" [3]

[edit] Windows NT

Windows-based automatic teller machine displaying a stop error

Blue screen of death in Windows 8

In Windows NT-based operating systems, the Stop error occurs when the kernel, or a driver running in kernel mode, encounters any error from which
it cannot recover. This is usually caused by an illegal operation being performed, where the only safe action the operating system can take is to restart
the computer. As a result data may be lost, since the user is not given an opportunity to save any unsaved data to disk. [4]

The text on the error screen contains an error code along, four other codes whose meanings depend on the error code itself, and an error name.
Depending on the error code, it may display the memory address at which the problem occurred, together with identifying details of the driver file
loaded at that address. Under Windows NT and 2000, the second and third sections of the screen may list all the currently-loaded drivers and display
all memory data (a "stack dump"), respectively. The driver information will list the disk address of the driver file, the file's creation date (as a Unix
timestamp), and the name of the file.[5]

By default, Windows NT based systems create a memory dump file when a Stop error occurs. Depending on the operating system version, this can
range from a 64 kB mini-dump to a complete dump of memory that saves the entire active contents of the RAM. The resulting file can thus be
analyzed later. A kernel debugger software program may be used in order to obtain a stack trace (identifying certain memory information) to find the
true cause of the error, as the on-screen information is limited and may conceal the true cause.

A Stop error can also be caused by a critical boot loader error, where the operating system is unable to start from the bootable drive due to the
presence of an incorrect disk driver, a damaged file system, or a similar problem. In such cases no memory dump is saved.

[edit] Windows 8

A new version of the error screen has been seen in the developer preview of Windows 8, released in September 2011. Rather than displaying detailed
technical information about the error, it simply displays a short explanation that system needs to restart, the technical name of the error and a sad
emoticon. Also it contains a lighter shade of blue in the background. [6]

[edit] Meanings

The NT-style BSOD displays error codes that explain what just happened inside the kernel. The STOP error displays five error codes in the following
general form:

STOP: 0x#### (0x####, 0x####, 0x####, 0x####) Error Name

For example:[4]

STOP: 0x00000019 (0x00000000, 0xC00E0FF0, 0xFFFFEFD4, 0xC0000000) BAD_POOL_HEADER

The first code represents a specific error, while the others are additional data whose meaning depends on the error code. [4]

Common Causes of the Blue Screen of Death

Written by: Nicholas • Edited by: Lamar Stonecypher
Published Feb 24, 2010 • Related Guides: Windows Update | Blue Screen

The dreaded blue screen of death, or BSoD, is a common error among many Windows based PCs. Most of the time, the BSoD presents itself at what
may seem like a very random time. Does the blue screen of death really mean death to your computer? Most importantly, what causes it? More...

What causes the blue screen of death

Typical misconceptions about the blue screen of death are: it's a virus, it's spyware or malware, it happened because I was using Limewire, etc... This
is not completely true. You may wonder, if it's not a virus, what causes the blue screen of death?
There's typically not one thing that causes the blue screen of death. The blue screen of death may appear on a computer for many different reasons.
Some users have reported getting the blue screen of death after doing a Windows Update, some have reported the BSoD after downloading programs,
etc...

There are direct causes of the blue screen of death. To even get the blue screen, an error had to of occurred somewhere within the operating system.
However, pin pointing an exact cause is difficult, because the blue screen of death occurs at such random times, for several different reasons. To
better understand what causes the blue screen of death, you can analyze the data on the actual screen itself.

Finding the error

The BSoD may look like a blank screen with random code all over it. However, a lot of this code may actually be able to help you figure out what
caused the blue screen of death in the first place. The first section, listed toward the top of the screen, lists the error message that your computer
relates to the cause of the BSoD. The error message contains an error number that tells where the error occurred, and a text code, indicating the actual
type of error.

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What the error codes mean

Below, are some common error codes listed on the blue screen of death. Although they may not give you a specific cause of why your computer
crashed, they will help you get a general idea.

DIVIDE_BY_ZERO_ERROR

Numbers are a big part of computer programming. Unfortunately, they are not very easy to understand, for a non-computer-programmer. The divide
by zero error most likely means that an application on your computer tried to divide by zero, thus leading to a crash. If you want to try and pin point
the application that caused the error, you may want to try analyzing the memory dump.

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

If you are getting the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error, it's most likely due to a bad device driver or other hardware compatibility issue. If you
have recently upgraded your computer, or added any type of new hardware or device, try removing it and see if you still get the error.

KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

The kmode error is attributed to a device driver that has been configured incorrectly for your system.

REGISTRY_ERROR

This error describes a problem within your computer's registry. Software and program errors can cause registry malfunctioning but this error could
also be attributed to failure of your computer's hard drive to read the registry. Most of the time, restoring from backup will fix registry errors.

Conclusion

As you can see, the blue screen of death has several causes. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that your computer cannot be fixed or restored. It's
best to learn more about specific error codes on the blue screen of death. From there, you can try and find a solution to recover your files and data.
Microsoft has a very detailed article, listing several blue screen of death codes, that may be of help to you.